In A Crooked Little House or Aren't We All?
by honeynoir
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a Girl, and she lived in an enchanted forest. AU, the way 'Amy's Choice' is AU. Warning: implied depression.
1. Chapter 1 of 10

**A/N**: Written because I wondered what it would be like if _Amy's Choice_ and _The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang_happened at the same time, and in a fairytale. As you do.

This was intended to accompany the finale of S5 (I wrote probably 90% of this the days after _The Big Bang_ aired). It's obviously doesn't accompany much of anything anymore, what with it being a year and a half later (!). The idea came from this interview ( 2010/05/19/moffat-doctor-who-is-a-dark-fairy-tale/) and a bunch of meta written around when S5 aired.

**Warning**: Implied depression.

Apologies for the odd formatting!

* * *

**In A Crooked Little House (or Aren't We All?)**

(Once upon a time,) at the edge of a curious forest, stands a small, square Shed. Just after the idea of dawn, one of its inhabitants, a girl — _the_Girl — pushes open the door and lets herself out, spilling a bit of light onto the dewy grass. She's off to work.

She walks through the garden; treads on fallen leaves and spring flowers and something that used to be herbs. She regrets not having time for a go on the swing, slips between a pair of trees, jumps over the tiny fence, and then she turns to the right.

She passes through the dawn-darkness and the inky, slippery shadows, whistling shrilly. Her hands are in the coat pockets. Weak sunlight filters through foliage, illuminating the dark browns of the path, helping them leech colour from the flowers growing beside it. It is the path to infamy, someone once said. (It hardly matters to her; she only uses the one and it's what's at the end of it — either end — that's important.)

The path narrows with every step; and the narrower it becomes, the closer the trees grow, the thicker their stems are, the barer their branches, the coarser their bark, the denser their numbers. Finally, when the Girl has to duck under roots and press her elbows to her ribs and squeeze her boots into whatever space she can find to move forward at all, the mass of trunks win and light ceases to reach her.

That's where the path ends.

That's where her workday begins.

That's where she disappears.

* * *

Later, she (re-)emerges, stumbling, into the noon-darkness. She presses her hands to her chest and fights off the reaching shadows with twitches of her shoulders.

She's wearing a tiara, now, a bit crookedly.

She has an uneaten apple in a hand; it's smiling up at the treetops, at the suggestion of sky.

She hums a tune she's made up.

The path always seems shorter on the way back to the Shed than it does from it; already, she jumps over the tiny fence. She slips between the pair of trees, decides she's too hungry for the swing, runs through the garden, and claws the cottage door open with purple fingernails, letting light spill out onto the lawn.

Inside, as always, is the other inhabitant; a man in raggedy clothes. He sits in his rocking chair, as always, looking quite asleep. He's not comfortable; never has been. His limbs are stiff and his facial muscles taut.

"Rise and shine!" she calls. It's bright white-blue in there; light that comes from nowhere and is everywhere.

The cottage is cramped, but cramped is good; it's just right, in fact. There is the rocking chair, the focal point, right in the middle, facing the door. To one side of it are the cupboards and the cooker and the bucket that's always full of fresh water(-for-drinking); and on the other a table; and behind it a narrow bed. There are beams in the ceiling above it, and the floor below it is always clean. (Despite all this, it is a malevolent kind of rocking chair, and a fearful kind of place. The Girl is learning to ignore that.)

His eyes open. "You're here!" he says, and he does rise; a remarkably liquid motion; it always is, considering.

They each take two steps forward until their toes almost touch. She wraps one set of fingers around his tie and the other around a threadbare collar, and she rests her head on his shoulder; as much rest as she ever gets. He buries his fingers in her hair, lets them grow still there.

A moment; a while; the evening later, he gently disentangles her hands from his clothes. Then he pushes the coat down her shoulders, and she all but twirls it off. He yawns and stretches. "Why are you wearing jewellery?"

She hangs the coat up on the hook on the back of the door, yanks off the tiara and drops it onto the floor. Metal on metal. "For work."

He nods, and then he smiles.

Eventually, they construct some sort of meal out of whatever happens to be in the cupboards.

* * *

They leave the washing-up for later, like they always do, and she sits cross-legged on the floor and puts a brush she hasn't once dipped in paint to a crumbling piece of paper. (It's a work in progress; it'll be a picture of herself and the Man, the Girl thinks, but the man in her painting hasn't got a face yet and she never seems to have time to give him one.)

He talks about stars and other places and other times, and there is a hint of warmth in his voice, an ember of joy.

When there is a general feeling of night and the light has somehow dimmed, she kicks off her shoes and crawls into bed and he lowers himself into the rocking chair with a moan that has nothing of warmth to it.

The next morning, when she's put on her coat, she says (like she always does), "You behave now. Take a walk. Swing."

(As he always does), he smiles brilliantly in reply, leans forward, kisses her forehead.

She pushes the door open and steps out, and it shuts on its own behind her.

* * *

This Raggedy Man is a scientist; _the_Scientist, though what sort of science he professes himself to no one knows.

He stares at the back of the door for a moment. Then he turns, shuffles back to the rocking chair, sits down, sighs, and closes his eyes.

She'll be back again, the Girl, he hopes. (He counts on it, really.)

She slips his mind soon after that. Or rather; he lets her remain safely in one place, while so many other _places_rise up and vie for his attention.

As always, he clutches the armrests with no finesse, arches his back until an edge of wood is digging into the back of his head.

He needs her to come back.

* * *

A stone's throw from the Shed is a glade and a spot of water, and there, under the open sky, is the Woodsman.

Ever-vigilant, he's tending the forest. It is his responsibility.

Presently, he's crouching in a pool of shadow, peering between two dense bushes. He's spied an animal acting peculiarly. Perhaps there's _something_nearby; the Woodsman handles threats the best he can.

The animal in question is a white rabbit holding a clipboard; it has positioned itself next to the Path to Infamy.

The Woodsman's right hand freezes up; it's this thing it does, sometimes, when he's tense. He massages it absently and strains his hearing, expecting snarls and pants and commands; he gets, unexpectedly, the crack of small twigs (not large, not trunks) and the sound of sodden leaves compressed (not torn apart, not pressed two feet into the ground).

The rabbit straightens.

The Woodsman takes his eyes off it and glances toward the noises. He pushes a few branches aside, to see better, and then he goes still all over. No horror is coming down the path; it's the Girl. Though he has always known of her existence (and been aware of her and his duty to her), he hasn't laid eyes on her in a very long time. She's not supposed to be in this part of the forest, is she? Or _is_she? He can't remember which, now, and but a moment ago that was the most important thing in the world.

She sees the rabbit and stops immediately, her coat flapping. She has her hood up and it shades her eyes, but he can see her lips thin. Her hands are in her voluminous pockets, but he knows she's digging her nails into her palms.

"He's not real!" the rabbit singsongs. "He's not real!"

She bares her teeth at it.

As if this is its cue, the animal mock-bows and disappears.

Quickly enough to make the Woodsman flinch, the Girl frees a hand of red fabric and tosses something toward the spot where the rabbit stood. Whatever she's thrown lands with a small, moist thud. She looks at it for a moment, the hood falling further down her face.

The Woodsman forces himself to move, to pull back from the branches and step out into a place less overgrown. He raises a hand.

She doesn't look up; the hood doesn't move. She spins around and moves on, stomping heavily and trailing words that make the Woodsman widen his eyes.

He lowers the hand and hurries out onto the Path, intending to shout something, anything — just in time to see the shadows fold her in, take her away.

An apple lies in the moss, smiling up at him; he stoops to retrieve it. Its peel is glossy and red, the meat golden; and still, he has no desire to taste it. (No desire to taste anything.) He eases it into his satchel, looks toward the shadows once more, and then he falls back on routine.

* * *

"Rise and shine," the Girl says, much later, bent over the Raggedy Man.

He opens his eyes; it takes but a moment before recognition sparks in them.

She stares at him. There is a thought at the front of her mind and words at the tip of her tongue. Words that have something to do with that rabbit, somehow. She doesn't know what they mean, but they come out anyway: "Where's your box?"

"We're in it," he says.

She shakes her head, frowning. "No, where's the proper one?"

He blinks, slowly, and a shudder travels through his body, from tip to toe and back again, coalescing into a deep depression between his brows. His gaze flickers between her, the door, the table, his own hands. When he finally replies, his voice is hoarse. "I've lost it."

* * *

Later still, the Scientist looks for the box, the proper one. Really, he thinks, it could just be hiding somewhere, the size of, say, a matchbox. In an ancient chest half-buried in dust, he finds a pair of slippers, a dried sunflower, and a golden ring. But no box.

* * *

The Woodsman, looking for something that glinted of silver and spoke of destruction and disappeared far too easily, catches a glimpse of the Girl.

Heading down the path, heedless and hoodless, she's three shades of red in the darkness. The coat is of a shade bright enough to reach the farthest point of the forest; the shoes are darker and glistening with dew; the hair looks like it does in his daydreams. The Woodsman's mind is unusually sluggish, uncooperative, but he thinks that the feeling he has is a new kind of feeling (or perhaps the most ancient one of all) and he suddenly wishes he could be near her, see her face.

And then he stands in front of her.

He doesn't even have time to wonder how that happened; all he knows is that he can identify every nuance of her irises, hear the air rush down into her lungs, smell the soap on her skin, hear the interest/confusion in her voice as she asks "And who are you?" and he knows exactly what those raised corners of her lips mean and —

His hand doesn't freeze up as much as it just _hurts_; a burst of pain is born in the middle of it, and it shoots up his arm and further; he doubles over.

She reaches out a hand and he scrambles back, stumbling on twigs and leaves and his own feet; there's a terrible guilt and a terrible fear rushing through him, originating in his chest and poisoning the rest of him. Tendrils of some sort of emotion snake up through his core and mean to crush his windpipe from the inside. He turns his back on her and runs, his left hand pressed to his breastbone.

"Oi!" she calls (and he knows that tone of voice and he should stop, reallyprobablyshould, but he mustn't be near her). "Stop, you… green man! Oi! Stop!"

* * *

In the evening, the Scientist opens his eyes. The Girl comes into focus, clutching a piece of soap. He straightens his spine and forces the numb muscles in his face to animate and then he draws a deep breath, regrets it immediately. She's brought a less than pleasant smell with her. "You smell like… sick."

Her nightie is stiff and so discoloured its yellow, her hair is twisted into sticky ringlets, the coat is hanging crookedly on her shoulders. "I _know_."

She doesn't come toward him, so he remains in the rocking chair, tracing the marks in the armrests.

She flings open a cupboard door and pulls out a towel.

"Why?" he asks, tentatively.

"Your guess," she grunts, "is as good as mine." With that, she presses the items to her chest and stalks out, and the door remains open behind her.

A moment later he can hear the water pump outside gurgle.

* * *

After tea, he retreats to the chair again, rocking it carelessly with both feet, fiddling with his most recent invention.

"What's that?" she asks, gesturing vaguely with her still-half-finished painting. (He notices that she's — finally — given the man in it a mouth; a very generic sort of mouth.)

"A telescope."

"What did you use to make it?"

"Things."

"And those are my socks? And my hair slides?"

"They are _things_. Perfect, pliant, poke-y things."

She narrows her eyes. "I'm having a go when it's done."

"As many," he says, "as you want."

* * *

The Woodsman doesn't sleep. He doesn't seem to need to. He remembers sleep, or the _idea_of sleep, but he doesn't sleep.

He lies on his back on a soft spot of grass, his hands behind his head, looking up at the sky. At the deep dark blue of it, at the bright, yellow-golden stars; they're sluggish and thick, swirling infinitesimally.

He doesn't think he even blinks. He doesn't think he needs to.

There's a small gathering of water next to this, his proffered camp, and it houses a family of ducks. The water also houses a handful of trees with copper bark and curly, fluffy branches. He doesn't really like those trees.

He's gone with the Shed, from forest to forest. He's seen so much (too much).

His days begin and end with the Shed, always. And he always thinks he's spending too much time staring at it; and when he leaves he always thinks he hasn't looked at it long enough.  
It's a dull, windowless building, but somehow it always holds his interest.

He is a woodsman, but sometimes... He thinks that's not what he's meant to do. He's not a huntsman, certainly, but he feels perhaps he's expected to be one. And somehow he thinks it is his fault the Girl lives in the Shed.

That terrible feeling in his chest has eased, though the memory of it is insistent. He supposes there should be other memories preceding it; memories explaining _why_, but he can't access them. He's grown used to it, not being able to remember, but it's never been more irksome, more terrible. His head is full of things, and he can't get to them.

He curls up on his side, and tries to keep his face from twisting into something ugly.

He spends the night staring at the smiling apple.

* * *

He has things to do. As always, he makes sure the Shed is still at the edge of the forest. He stares at it, his toes pressed to the bars of the iron fence closing in what constitutes a garden. His right hand hovers over his left hip. There's not a suggestion of life in the garden, save for the ever-moving swing. But then, there never is. (Not while the Girl is away. This, he's realised recently.) He allows himself to slump his shoulders momentarily, to let the tension out in a sigh; makes sure the relief is just enough to refresh, not drain, him.

He has to move on; there's a sense of urgency and a lick of fear shifting in the back of his mind, and he's learnt to trust himself.

He finishes the rest of his work early, having been very sloppy — but who would notice anyway — and heads into a part of the forest he usually avoids. There are mostly horrors there, scurrying about in the darkness; there's nothing he can do for them, and he has no business seeking them out. They find him anyway. Him and the Shed. This time, though, the end justifies the means.

How had he appeared in front of the Girl? What had he done to her? He can't find out on his own, apparently, unless his mind decides to oblige him. He needs help, or a few pointers, or… someone to talk to.

Among the horrors lives a Wicked Woman — though her Wickedness is disputed — and she has an answer to every question, or so the forest makes believe. He's glimpsed her a few times, never straying far from her place of dwelling; a woman shrouded in black, with a cloak that made the leaves whisper.

And she was also, it was said, a woman repenting.

* * *

In the very, very middle of the curious forest, stands a curious Cottage. It is quite decrepit, but the most vibrant blue.

It is this cottage, and its mistress, that the Woodsman is looking for.

Though he's learnt a lot, the Woodsman has next to no knowledge about this place; he knows that most beings go to great lengths to avoid the Cottage, and that even the trees gossip about the Woman; that it's held for truth, that instead of a heart, she has a lump of ice.

He approaches the door, shakes his head to get the phrase 'Pull to open' out of it, and knocks; not too loudly.

The door swings open. The Woman stands on the threshold, keeping out of the sunlight. Her lips are red and her nails are red, and there's something red about her eyes, too. "Come in, Woodsman," she says, and makes a gesture that is tired at best.

The Woodsman pushes any thoughts of fear away, squares his shoulders, inclines his head, and steps over the threshold

— and a board comes loose and only narrowly misses his nose, and his right hand, and his right foot. It lands with a flat kind of sound, the impact stirring up golden clouds of dust.

He looks up at the ceiling; the board-shaped hole is full of an ominous red light; it _pounds_. He points. "You probably want to fix that."

"Of course," she says, and the tone of her voice is either sharp or disinterested.

The Cottage is bigger on the inside. It's also full of things. There are flickering candles that almost achieve a steady rhythm between them, and glass orbs reflecting something completely different than what they should, and crystalline shadows, and metal sheets nailed to the walls, and corners that seem less and less like angles the longer he looks at them.

It smells nothing of wax, though, nor smoke; but like the stale air he'd find in caves, and fresh herbs, and something completely different. An indoors smell, he decides. He doesn't know anything about those.

She straightens her gown and sinks into an enormous easy chair. "What can I do for you?" She gestures to the (rather plainer) seat opposite the table.

A handful of scrolls rolled out to varying degrees and a dozen books are spread across the tabletop. An inkpot and a quill teeter on top of a volume as thick as the length of his forearm. Next to it are a cup and a plate of actual porcelain.

"Are you going to sit down or not?"

The Woodsman hastens to nod, and slips into the offered chair. It's been such a long time since he's seen an actual book… he reaches for the nearest one; a thin, leather-bound thing.

"What brings you here?" she asks.

He pulls his hand back; thinks he should blush, but he never seems to be able to. "Sorry."

She narrows her eyes and studies him. "What can I do for you?"

He shifts. "Well, I'm… There's the Girl…"

"Ah," she says, and her voice is warm. "The Girl."

"Who is she? If you know… Do you know?"

The Woman performs a miniscule shrug. "I know a lot." She reaches into her robe and withdraws something wrapped in cloth. "Not everything, but a lot."

He nods.

Inside the cloth is yet another book; battered, stained, and the colour of the Cottage. "The Girl, you say." She opens this book, tilting it so that it is obvious he shouldn't even bother trying to sneak a peek. She flips a few pages forward. Then a few more. Then a couple back.

"Where did you get that?" His throat is a little dry.

"Shhh," she says. "Ah! Found something." She reads; a bit stiltedly, a bit hesitantly. "The Girl will sleep for 1894 years."

"That's very… specific," he says.

"Isn't it, now?"

"How do you…"

She smiles, but it's not a pleased smile. "Simple. I remember the future."

"Yeah, simple. Does it say more?"

"Not at the moment. Was there anything in particular you wanted to know?"

"I saw her in the forest and I… I thought I'd like to meet her and then I was in front of her. I didn't _move_, I was just there! I want to know how."

"I can't tell you anything about that."

"Please?"

"Listen to me."

He leans forward. "Tell me what you know."

She turns the book around, shows him a pair of perfectly blank pages. "There's nothing to tell."

"I need to know. You can help me."

"I'm sorry," she says, and any warmth left in her voice tapers out into the suggestion of a shudder. "That's all I can do for you."

The Woodsman takes his leave, his heart heavier than ever.

* * *

Sometimes, when she's been away, the Girl finds the Raggedy Man scratching-scratching-gripping the handles; shouting, or growling, or bargaining, or simply enduring. This time, it's a combination of the first two. "It's stifling in here! Open all the windows, all the doors, all the cracks… No, not those..."

"There are no windows," hisses the Girl. "Can't you remember that?" But she opens the door an inch.

He rocks the chair, a small movement of a toe, his arms folded, tucked close. "Thank you," he murmurs, and his head lolls to the side. He's still, and stiff.

When he's made no noise at all for a long time, the Girl braves the bulk and the motion of the chair and hugs him the best she can.


	2. Chapter 2 of 10

The Shed is stifling, sometimes. Full of a mounting pressure; a palpable thing; rattling the mugs, scratching at the furniture, tearing at the bedclothes and her discarded coat.

The echo of a raggedy thunder shakes the walls; it's on the outside and has little to nothing to do with the pressure inside. Still, the Man's pulse jumps and catches in tune with the thunderclaps; his breath is raggedy too. She presses a fingertip to his wrist, and twin flutters tick against her skin. The sleeve that was mostly whole before has been torn – rent by this pressure – and exposes a great deal of his elbow.

He doesn't speak as much as hiss, and his eyes are squeezed shut. "I leant on the President, and I said… I said… this lighthouse is under attack! It's a table wine. Keep warm! Who would vote for sweet? One day I will come back!"

She squeezes his shoulders and pokes his ribs and brushes the damp hair from his forehead.

"I always win!" He rubs his hands on his shirt, twists the fabric. "You are the last of your kind! I am the…"

"It's all right," she whispers. "You see?"

He swallows, presses his teeth together, and doesn't make another sound for a long time.

When she's almost fallen asleep (her knees on the slick floor, her cheek against the armrest, one of her hands wrapped around his wrist and the other grasping his bare elbow), he says, "I'm sorry."

* * *

With paint in her hair and a throbbing grief stuck behind her breastbone, the Girl stumbles along the path, heading home.

This night, the shadows reach further, deeper, darker.

Something rustles behind her. She glances over a shoulder, and something glances back. Something with big teeth and long hair and a white dress.

She spins. Demands: "Show yourself! Come on!"

The shadows shift and a foot falls on the path.

Not exactly what she wanted to see. She turns and runs, pressing her palms to the sides of her neck. The rustling follows; gain; come up next to her. She has to keep to the Path, and the lump in her throat is obstructing her breath. The foliage is greener than usual, brighter, exposing her…

Snarling rises above her, and something grabs at her hair and – she ducks and twists.

And she wonders – why can't she leave the Path? Honestly, it's the one place she's truly visible –

So she cuts into the forest at random, squeezing between stems and petals and shrubbery, seeking out the least dense shadows; kicking at roots when they lash out to ensnare her ankles; getting leaves in her mouth and needles in her hair and thorns in her clothes.

The snarling gets louder, gets everywhere, and she drops to her knees and looks for something to fight with.

"What did I tell you about this part of the forest?"

The Girl grits her teeth and spins onto her feet, the stiff moss she crouched in tearing her tights. She can leave the Path if she wants to, and that's final. No one's going to come here with lectures in their voice and –

The Woodsman isn't talking to her.

The teeth in the dress – the Vampire – cocks her head. She's leering, and spitting... but not attacking. She and the Woodsman are standing in what's not quite a glade, in a lick of dusky sunlight-heading-for-darkness, close enough to bung a rock at.

He has his hands on his hips and a disappointed look on his face. "Go on, I'll let it pass. This time."

The Vampire hisses some more, reaches toward him, bends her fingers.

He raises a hand, just a little, and lets it hover over the fabric of his tunic.

The Girl cranes her neck, pushes a dense lump of moist leaf aside; can't see anything out of the ordinary.

The Vampire howls… but retreats into the shadows.

The Woodsman straightens his tunic.

* * *

The Girl brushes off her knees, pushes as much hair as possible behind her ears, and moves into view. "Thanks," she mumbles; darts forward, slaps the Woodman on the back.

He nods and rubs the spot. "Angry vampires – not as much fun as you might… think."

"What, you meet Vampires often?"

"Well, not that often. On occasion. Sometimes." He scratches his head, vigorously. "Um, had a nice day?"

And the Girl remembers her day; the pain in her chest, the lump in her throat. She swallows, again and again, but the hurt won't shift. (_For Amy_, she thinks, and she doesn't know why.) She pulls her coat tighter. "Thanks. Really. I'm good now."

* * *

As she makes her way back to the Path, he follows her, hovers near her; raised-hands-ready-to-help and concerned-eyes and all. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine. I just want to go home."

"Can I –"

"I'm going home."

"Wait!"

"Wait for what, exactly?"

He glances at his shoes (they're the same colour as the rest of his clothes, if slightly more water-damaged), and when he looks up, he says, "You are home."

She scoffs. "One: no, I'm not. Two: you don't know where I live."

"Turn around. Just… you'll want to, I think."

She does, and she's so close to her own fence the iron bars stop her coat mid-twirl. The little lawn strewn with golden leaves and studded with spring flowers is there, and the swingset is there, and the trees are there – and twenty feet away, there's the Shed. She sucks in a breath. "That's not supposed to happen even a little bit."

He sighs. "You know, you're probably right."

Something pulls the air inwards, toward the rocking chair (where else). Something shifts beneath his skin (she can feel it, and yet she can't) and slips around the beating of his pulses. It solidifies forehead creases and crow's feet and nasolabial folds.

Her head hurts. (But, previously, in just a few words, he made the pain in her throat better.)

* * *

The next day, the Woodsman and the Girl run into one another, quite unexpectedly, really.

She grins. "Off to see the Vampires?"

"Yes, yeah, probably should. Angry vampires, like I said. Always best to sort out as soon as possible." He makes a fist and cleaves the air with it, industriously.

She giggles. Purses her lips. "So… last night. I would've invited you in, but, you know."

"Yeah." (He's not sure he does know.) "Are we not going to mention the weird part at all… because that's okay."

"What weird part?"

"You know… how you got home."

"Yes… I walked. With my feet. It was all _very_ weird."

"Okay." He pauses. "Yeah, sorry. Not weird at all."

"Maybe you should spend a little less time alone in the forest? It's not doing great things for your wit."

He straightens his tunic; really, really hopes she doesn't see the dirt or berry stains. "Can I walk you somewhere?"

"And where would that be?"

"Home? Again?"

She grins. "Can we go to your place?"

"Um, I don't actually have a place... Woodsman, you know."

"Your favourite place, then? Anything that's not this Path would be great."

He makes a noise, and not even he knows what it's supposed to mean.

She pulls her hood up, and it pushes her hair forward. "I guess you can walk me a bit of the way home, if you must."

"No, I've got a place!" He's too quick and too loud and there's the horrible sensation of not-blushing again.

She pushes the hood back, just a little, grins wider. "Let's go, then."

He brings her to a field of sunflowers, because he thinks (knows) she'll like that place.

She lies down on a convenient piece of grass, and makes faces at him until he does the same, until they're side by side, until their little fingers are nearly touching.

The shadows of the sunflowers sway, tickle their faces. Looking up at the sky and the shadow of the moon, he says, "That's nice."

And she says, "I want to go there."

* * *

Later, she lets him walk her all the way to the fence. She has her back against it and her hands hidden in her voluminous coat pockets and her hair keeps blowing in her face. The swingset creaks in the background.

The Woodsman says, "Well, good night, then."

She looks up, catches his gaze neatly. "I remember you, from… somewhere."

He'd built the little fence, once, when he had a moment (well, several) to spare, and he'd kept it impeccable. For such a long time, it had just been him and the forest. "I remember you too."

They swap smiles, and he tries not to look at the line that appears between her brows.

The Man rouses from his sleep when the Girl enters. He pokes at one of the tears in his trousers, mumbles, "Why am I wearing this _again_?"

She hangs up her coat, closes her eyes for a moment. "It's what you've always worn."

"No…" He touches his throat. "I don't think it is."

She takes his hands and pulls him to his feet, wrapping her arms around him before he's found his footing, pressing her chin to his neck. She wants some of his glamour to chase the confusion away.

He places his hands on her shoulder blades, gingerly. Tonight, it doesn't help like it usually does. She settles her head more comfortably against his shoulder. Nothing happens, nothing at all. _Then what's the point of you?_ she thinks, and the thought burns a tiny hole somewhere deep inside. She swallows, blinks.

The rocking chair creaks.

* * *

He disentangles himself and retreats to the table, where he continues to work on his telescope; presently, he's cooing at it.

She sinks into the chair and makes it move violently, until she thinks she might topple over.

He doesn't notice.

* * *

_' Take a walk. Swing.'_ She says, always. _'Go outside.'_

He's tried. Really. That was all he'd done for the first few days/weeks/months.

Tried every single setting the sonic had. When every single one of them had only produced a noise, he'd realised it wouldn't be so easy. Well, no, that was a lie. He'd realised that long before.

He'd broken his fingernails and every single utensil and most of her little things trying to open the door. Invented things that accomplished nothing except giving him hope and taking it away. Invented more things to fix those he'd broken. Lied to himself. Failed every time.

Oh, he'd tried following her outside. Taking her hand. Holding her coat. Keeping the door from closing. Didn't help. He never, ever got further than the threshold.

No, the key, he's realised, is to wait.

Nights like this, when the Girl comes back with night air and starlight streaming behind her, it's especially hard.

The Woman leans back in her armchair, hooks one ankle behind the other, pushes her bare feet into the soft seat; supports her book with her knees.

She brushes a thumb along the page as she reads. As she smiles. The lights have dimmed/are dimming/will be dimmed, and she's gilded and golden and saved by repetition.

The Woman leans back in her armchair.

* * *

The Woodsman waits by the Path. The sky is blue on blue and the burning stars have faded, if not completely disappeared.

The Girl appears, eventually, and he presents her with a great sunflower. "I was at the meadow earlier," he says, not quite looking at her. "The stem was broken and I thought you might… like it."

She smiles; he can see all her teeth.

She takes the flower and holds it with both hands, and when she leaves, it takes a bit longer for the shadows to swallow her.

He rushes through his work again. He has never spent as little time making sure the Shed is all right as he does now; he's quite certain the Girl is safe, after all. No one bothers her home while she's not there.

He needs to visit the Wicked Woman again. He _needs_ to know more, and hopefully the book has some answers this time.

* * *

The area immediately in front of the Cottage is full of footsteps; and incisions; and piles of dirt; and blackened grass. He can't remember if it was like that before.

He stares at the door for a long while before he knocks. Knows, for a moment, that he once helped paint a nicked box with a microwave on the front a shade of blue that was nothing like the shade of the Cottage.

The door opens, and the Woman beckons him inside. "Come in, Woodsman," she says.

The Woodsman smiles and shows that his hands are empty, and then he steps over the threshold.

– and a board comes loose and only narrowly misses his nose, and his right hand, and his right foot. It lands with a flat kind of sound, the impact stirring up golden clouds of dust.

"Not again," he says, crouches to get a closer look at the board.

The Woman's voice is either amused or dangerous. "Excuse me?"

He glances up at the pounding light in the ceiling. "The same thing happened last time."

"You're going to have to be more specific."

"I was here… before."

"Yes, asking about the Girl."

"And that same thing happened then… with the board."

"Did it really?" She smirks. "Sit down."

The Woodsman stands, clenches his aching hand into an aching fist; looks around. Like before, he can see books and scrolls. A cup and a plate. An inkpot and a quill. Those are in the same place, even. In fact (he swallows); everything is in the same place. In fact; everything looks exactly the same. "I should probably leave."

"Already? Didn't you have an errand here? Sit down."

He agrees, if reluctantly. He pulls out the proffered seat in a different way this time, on purpose; to the side and quickly – and a honeypot tumbles from a shelf.

The Woman blinks, once, twice; then reaches inside her robes and retrieves the book wrapped in cloth. She unravels it like – _exactly_ like – last time.

The honeypot nudges at the Woodsman's foot, and he picks it up. Inside it is another honeypot, and inside that honeypot is a walnut. He pushes everything to the side, behind a pile of books.

The Woman doesn't look up. "What can I do for you?"

"The Girl… lives in the Shed, right?"

She reads from her book as one would read from a work of fiction. "The Girl and the Raggedy Man live in the Shed."

"The Raggedy Man?"

"…in the Shed."

"Yeah, remember him. He's not supposed to be in the Shed anymore."

"Not supposed to?" Now she looks up.

"The Girl should be alone in there."

"There _is_ a man."

"I don't understand…" He presses a hand to his forehead. "He's supposed to…"

"He's supposed to what?"

"I brought something," he says, willing the headache to go away (it does). And he retrieves the apple from his satchel, sets it on the table. "This is hers."

The woman peers at the fruit with narrowed eyes. "Can I keep it? Might help me… remember."

"Yeah, of course."

"Come back this morning."

"In the morning?"

"Yes, that's what I said." And she laughs. "I'll take care of this. If I see the Girl, I'll give her your love."

The Woodsman stiffens. "You really don't have to go there." The Woman frowns in such a way that his heart skips a beat. "Can I show you something? It's just outside."

The Woman stops in the doorway, criss-crossed with shadows.

Next to the Cottage there is a tree. It's a rather nice tree, the Woodsman thinks, except it has budding leaves and dazzlingly autumnal ones at the same time. "Does that not look weird to you?"

She shrugs, patches of light skittering across her face. "It's always been like that."

"It's not supposed to be!"

"Supposed to this, supposed to that. How can you be sure?"

"I just am."

"I'll look it up."

He looks down at the ground; the footsteps, the holes, the blackened grass. "They attack you too?"

"Of course. But no attack accomplished that."

* * *

From a multicoloured window, the Woman watches as a great, jagged bolt of lightning cuts across the wondrous sky. Ever so much like a grinning mouth, that bolt.

Behind her, a board falls to the floor, landing with a crash that makes her teeth click and her heart pause.

She turns to the door; suddenly, she wants to take a walk.

* * *

Nothing is pushing or pulling at their world inside the box any longer. The equilibrium is a perfectly nice, custard-smelling haven. As usual.

The Man is talking to himself, again, and she finds it oddly comforting. "I left him, the Captain," he says. "And she stayed behind, and oh, what happened to _her_? It's my honour… I never, _ever_… Sarah Jane Smith, my best friend! Wonderful chap, the Brigadier!"

"Tell me about them?" She leans against the table, stirring milk into her tea.

He mumbles, "They've saved…"

"Tell me about them," She wraps her hands around the mug, lets the steam tickle her face.

"Saved," he says, louder, and then he falls asleep.

* * *

Later, and earlier, when the Girl is about to leave for work, she turns in the doorway and says, "I met the Woodsman."

The Man doesn't comment, but there's a flutter of the eyelids and the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

The Girl pushes the door open, lets the light spill out onto the dewy grass, sets foot on the spring flowers and the autumn leaves – and stops.

By the gate, on the path, half in shadow and half in dawn, there's a woman. _The_ Woman. The Girl moves, and the door closes behind her.

From a fold in her mantle, the Woman shakes something red and gleaming. "An apple?" she calls, when the Girl has taken precisely ten steps.

The Girl narrows her eyes and takes the ten other steps cautiously, stopping just before her toes touch the fence. She looks at the apple. "Can't."

The Woman shrugs and turns the fruit around; there's the smile and the eyes and the evergreen pulp.

"That's mine," says the Girl.

"Yes, it is. Do you want it back?"

"Keep it." She frowns. "You're the Woman who lives in the Cottage."

The Woman raises her chin. Shadows cling to the skin below her eyes, enhance the twists of her curls. "That's right. Now that I know that you know where to find me-" And she disappears, in a flash of green.

The Girl blinks, shakes her head; once, twice; then she turns to the right.


	3. Chapter 3 of 10

The Woman sniffs the cider, wrinkles her nose, and carefully replaces both the stopper and the bottle.

The Scientist is asleep in a rocking chair; looks asleep; ignores her. She gathers her robe and sits on the table (between an open suitcase and an orrery), facing his disregard and (because she can _just_ reach) poking his knee with a pointy-toed shoe. He doesn't react in the slightest; his eyes are closed, his fingers are limp and half-curled around the armrests, his breathing is even. She pokes again, harder; his leg twitches, falls back. His eyes are closed, his fingers limp, his breathing even.

"Come on," she says, and the last word turns into laughter. She takes his glowing stick from the suitcase and points it at him. "Come on, old man."

He takes a breath; it's slightly deeper than the others.

"I don't have time for this, and I'm having a few reservations about this place." She puts the stick back, looks through the content of the suitcase. "Come, now. Walk out like the walls aren't there?"

"They're waking up," he says, still not opening his eyes. "In my mind. I can't…"

"What do you mean?" She jumps off the table, crouches next to him, places a hand on his knee. "What's wrong?"

"Waking up. I can't…"

"Talk about it?"

"They keep…"

"No. Not yet." She sighs, and it's a very private sigh. "I'll come back later." She strokes the sides of his face with the back of her right hand, and, on the tips of her toes, she leaves.

* * *

And again: the Girl, and the Path, and the Forest.

And, falling into step with her; the urge to close her eyes, the urge to keep them open.

It hadn't been a good day at work; her friend had taken her hand and led her to a school, and she had looked and looked for Isabella. Hadn't found her; had to leave. Out of time.

As if that wasn't enough, they're getting worse and worse – the things creeping into her line of sight. So few near the end of the Path, so very many crowding the Shed. Looking straight ahead, she won't notice them. But she _can't_. She has to look, left/right, up/down, over a shoulder. She always looks, because she can't not look.

There are the great Eyes, oddly inconspicuous for their size, blending in with the trees until she looks for them.

To the right: down-turned mouths and red eyes and pink faces.

To the left: a metal head.

Next to that: words in white chalk all over the trunk of a tree; always the same words: _bad wolf_.

Over a shoulder: a knife, and a scaly arm. She drops her lamp and presses her hands to her stomach and forces her attention forward, homeward; she starts to run.

And there's the voice, never the same one, telling her that Prisoner Zero has escaped.

* * *

Upon her sweaty, wheezy return, the Raggedy Man is huddled in the chair. He doesn't get up to greet her, doesn't open his eyes. Instead, he murmurs, "Can't you feel gravity… pulling? Oh, of course. We can't keep up with the spinning…"

She fetches the threadbare blanket from the bed and drapes it over him.

"Susan," he says.

"Who's that?" she asks, hoping for a story.

He grabs a corner of the blanket and twists it. "Susan. Alex. Miranda. Jenny."

"Tell me about them?"

But his head lolls to the side. "Gallifrey," he says, and then a stream of something indecipherable. His brow is cold, and shining with perspiration.

She places herself directly in front of him, lifts her voluminous skirts and puts her trainer-clad feet on either side of his legs. "Wake up!"

"Sara, Adric... Donna…"

"Wake up!" And she grabs his shoulders and shakes him until the chair rocks so violently he almost slides out of it. "Please!"

He stirs, finally, and opens his eyelids; it seems like a monumental effort. His lips quirk vaguely upward. "Hello!"

She pushes the hair from his face; tucks damp strands behind ears. "You all right?"

"I was just thinking, I've been before… the Toyroom. Or was it the Land of Fiction?"

"What does that mean?"

He grins; a small and tired grin. Pushes himself more upright. "Only everything."

"Let's do something." She strokes his arm and grabs his wrist, pulls. "Let's go outside!"

"Oh, I can't. You know I can't. Not right now. You go on, I'll wait here."

"Of course you can!"

He meets her gaze and pats her on the cheek. Offers her another grin; one that's almost energetic. "The perfect prison."

"Please."

"You go on! I'm sorry!"

* * *

The next day, of all days, the Girl decides not to go to work. Instead, she thinks about leaving the Path and looking for the Woodsman; so she does.

She walks until she finds him.

It's light, actually, properly _light_, when she does. He stumbles out of the forest, damp to the knees, with a bundle of purple berries in his hair and dirt all over a cheek.

"Are you busy?"

"No, I… I almost caught a rampant stallion but, uh, it got away."

She laughs, even though she's not quite sure what's funny. "You need a bath."

They sit next to a little lake, and on her coat, burying their bare toes in white sand, while their shoes – his scuffed Woodsman-ly ones and her comfortable, red ones – dry in the sun. (There had been an accident during the washing. Well, not as much an accident as some deliberate pushing.) It's sunny, but not warm and not cold and the sand's neither dry nor damp.

The Girl stares at the brilliant reflections in the water until she has to wipe her eyes. "Are there really only the four of us here?"

"Yep. And the Goblin, but he may just be a myth." He's free of dirt and berries, and has rolled up his sleeves.

"Yeah, I was thinking people we could visit."

* * *

From her multicoloured window, the Woman looks over the forest. Then she douses the candles' flames with her fingertips, shakes out her curls, and steps out into the night.

* * *

The Woodsman thinks he can feel the warmth of the sun on his skin.

He takes the Girl's hand and she lets him.

(And the boy and the Girl look at each other and realise they had grown up together, in a place so far away, such a static length of time ago.

And that they were –)

"He's not real!" The white rabbit is back, is behind them, and it has brought friends; three more rabbits, all of them clutching clipboards.

The Girl growls and rips her hand away, stares over a shoulder. "I. Know. He's. Real. I just talked to him.

"He's not real!"

She kicks herself free of sand and onto her feet, snatches and raises one of her boots. "Yes, he is."

And the Woodsman gets up and holds up his hands. "Please, let's –"

The four rabbits cut him off in unison. "He's not –"

"Go away," he says, using his sternest voice. "Or I will bop you on the head."

Four mouths shut and four pairs of noses twitch.

"Please."

And their noses twitch a few more times, and then they're suddenly gone.

He's happy for a moment, until he turns and sees the Girl's still holding her heavy shoe, and he thinks that there's a distinct possibility it'll end up very, very close to his head. "I'm sorry?" he says. "I wouldn't really have bopped them."

She grips the shoe tighter; then her expression twists into a smile. "Oh," she says, "You're so stupid."

* * *

The Scientist taps his foot, but doesn't push, doesn't make the chair move.

The Girl has gone to bed. On one hand, hearing her snuffle and battle the covers is comforting, on the other – well, lately he's been slightly concerned he's going to eat her while she's sleeping.

He blames the mares.

Well, more like memories, really.

He's managed to keep the worst of it in his head. Wouldn't do to let one's thoughts think for themselves. He holds out hope for one of the good ones, always does – they're few, far between, and threaten to fray at the edges or warp into… Still, he's had a few genuinely _good_ ones: running in red grass, the very first weddings, the births, a rather nice picnic, that time when someone got his tea right, swapping stories in Cardiff, a night at the theatre in 1969, a thousand thousand hours tinkering with the old girl, the first visit to Earth...

Terribly boring to wait for the door to open, staring at this blue-white dusk – but all his research and all his inventions and all his intuition tell him patience will get him out of the Shed. Those would be the rules of this place. Boring, boring rules. He flexes his fingers and sticks his tongue out.

And later, the mounting pressure is everywhere, scratching at the trees and tearing at the bushes, tugging and pulling and pushing and clawing – the shadows contort and lengthen and darken and they fall across the Path, and the Girl looks straight ahead, now, but it doesn't help anymore.

She sees things, new things, but only ever glimpses; a petrified tree, a circle of mirrors, giant spiders, giant wasps, a giant wind-up doll.

This time, there's no voice reminding her about Prisoner Zero. There is, however, utter silence. Silence so complete she feels it like a physical discomfort. Not the rustling of a leaf, not the chirp of a bird; only her open-mouthed breaths and the pulse beating in her ears.

* * *

The Woodsman stops next to the fence in front of the Shed. He'd followed the sound of sirens and engines and destruction, but the closed he'd got, the more the noises had tapered off. He can, in fact, not hear anything anymore. This place looks the same, though, and that's all that matters.

There's the touch of a hand on his shoulder, and he whirls –

and there's no one there. It takes him far too long to realise what's different: there's a piece of paper stuck to one of the silver-leaved trees, and it most definitely wasn't there before.

It's smooth and small and mostly bright white, the note, and he doesn't recognise the handwriting. It says, _Knock_.


	4. Chapter 4 of 10

The Woodsman has opened the little gate and passed the swing; he treads on fallen leaves and spring flowers and something that should have been herbs, and he regrets having fenced even himself out.

He's barely finished that thought when he notices the grass; a carpet leading to the door. He's never seen grass like that before, and he's seen a lot of grass. When he steps on it, his feet barely sink.

He's closer to the Shed than he's been in a long, long time, and now he raises a hand and knocks on the door –

which opens on its own, outward. Light falls across the Woodsman's feet, and they, of all things, start to tingle. He looks down, and the light is so bright he can't see anything below his knees. _Everything_ tingles.

There's a shadow; it abruptly makes every blemish on his boots and his trousers as apparent as ever. Then he realises he's staring at his own feet, and looks up. He meets the Scientist's eyes, and they're jovial, but the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. "Hello!"

"Hello." The Scientist raises a hand; pokes the Woodsman's chest. "You."

"Um, hello. Just wanted to drop by. Friendly neighbourhood…"

"Why did you come here?"

"Like I said, I just wanted to…"

"Naturally you didn't."

"Well, I… I just felt like I had to."

"Let's go outside," says the Scientist, loudly and without any modulation. He wraps his fingers around the Woodsman's upper arm and takes a gigantic step across the threshold. He's hardly touched the luscious grass with one foot before lifting the other one from whatever sort of floor the Shed has; the Woodsman has to lean back to counter the pull of the other man's weight.

The Scientist stares at _his_ feet, tramples some grass, jumps up and down. Looks over his shoulder and back again. "You beautiful… birdwatcher!" And he grasps the Woodsman's neck with cold fingers and bends it; presses dry lips to his forehead. "You are gorgeous!"

"I'm a Woodsman."

"Yes, of course you are. Come along!"

They go round, to the back of the Shed, where the forest has almost defeated the fence and the darkness is of a different quality than anywhere else. The curious symbols on the walls are most prominent on this side; they're green; bright in some places, duller in others; broken circles.

Something wooden peeks out from under a dense mass of shrubbery; the remnants of a bench, the Woodsman's certain.

"What's the matter? Woods-_man_?"

"What? Nothing?"

"Then why did you look at me like that?" The Scientist leans against the Shed, the light outlining him. He takes deep breath upon deep breath.

"You don't understand."

"Try me."

The Woodsman clenches his jaws.

"Take your time."

A bird starts to sing a forlorn, off-key sort of tune. The Woodsman relents, spreads his arms. "You're still here, okay. And you're still the same."

"Good start."

"I've seen people be born and then die from old age, while I…" He squeezes his eyes shut; counts to three; forces them open. "I shouldn't be able to do that."

"While you what?"

"Stayed the same."

The Scientist nods, once. "Yes. Right." He pushes off from the wall and puts a steady hand on the Woodsman's shoulder. "A hundred years in a second. Vice versa. Not something you forget."

"Why do I remember it at all? We're the only ones here."

The Scientist's fingers dig rather deep, and something about the green light saps the joviality from his eyes and leaves them dark and deep and glassy, and that shouldn't be possible, either, probably. "Have I offered you tea yet?" he asks, loosening his grip, his gaze wavering.

* * *

The Shed is not a comfortable place. It's dark despite the too-bright light; cold, stuffy, and smaller on the inside. And that abominable rocking chair. All sleek and stern… and the way the armrests were covered in little scratches… The Woodsman wants to turn away from it, and yet, he can't look away. He's angry with it, and grateful for it, and some inside part he can't specify aches. "I thought you'd come back for me."

"What?" The Scientist pokes at the kettle with a cane that glows green.

"Nothing."

"You can have the chair. Best chair in the house. Comfy, comfy chair. Well, not really so much with the comfort, but it's the only one we've got." There's something incredibly strained about his smile.

For a moment or two, the Woodsman thinks his heart tries to crawl up his throat, and then he remembers that's not possible. Still, he'd rather not sit at all for a year or so (and he'd tried that once). "I'll stand. Like… standing."

"Fine!" the Scientist almost shouts, somehow keeping the smile. "I'll take it! Common courtesy dictates I ask and all that. It's my chair, anyway, I should sit… The table is a very nice table, will do for sitting on, absolutely. Sit down on the table, not often you hear that, is it. Ha!"

And the Woodsman sits down on the table, between an enormous biscuit tin and a mug filled to the brim with tea that smells like oranges. "Yeah," he says, "it's a nice table. Very… sturdy."

The Scientist grins and makes a sound to accompany it. Then he looks at the rocking chair, makes a different sort of sound, and shuffles toward it. He didn't make any tea for himself.

The Woodsman closes his eyes and swallows something acrid. He _knows_ that chair, what it will do, can do, what he won't let it do, except he was busy when they did it, he _hurt_ her, and then she was… He opens his eyes.

The Scientist is sitting down, now; he leans forward, back bent too much, fingernails digging into the armrests. And he's staring. "How are you?"

"How are _you_?"

He laughs, shortly. "I'm fine. Always fine."

"I don't think you are."

"I don't think _you_ are."

"You're not even supposed to be here anymore."

"You're definitely not supposed to be here. At all." Another bout of laughing. The Scientist leans back and stares up at the ceiling. "But you are."

"Yeah… I am."

"That is. Fantastic." He rocks the chair, doesn't relax as much as fight it.

"You're not fine," the Woodsman says, jumping off the table. The other man twitches slightly when the Woodsman places a hand on his forehead (not fine), but doesn't react at all to having his pulse taken (definitely not fine). And when the Woodsman touches his shoulder,

the Scientist says, "Don't you know your own name?"

"It's just the four of us here, I'm pretty sure you know me if you just-"

"You're an idiot… an imbecile… buy me a drink first."

"Sorry?" The Woodsman peers at the other man's tongue, then brushes as many lymph nodes as he thinks he can get away with.

"Fifty-seven academics just you stupid girl reverse the polarity of the jelly baby and look at the state of your hair."

"Look at me, please."

The Scientist does, actually, look. What he actually was seeing was another matter. "You too, savage. Oh, my giddy panda on a chair I need a bigger head if you're talking to yourself again, Doctor, why do you always get yourself into it'll orbit the sun Brigade Leader oh, look, rocks."

"Take my hands and squeeze them."

The Scientist squeezes. "Oh, Jamie, you saved the world has anyone asked a cat falls from box her mind will burn I poisoned the soup pull the trigger who am I?"

"I'm going to listen to your hearts." The Woodsman kneels, bends, holds the tie to the side, and presses an ear to the other man's chest. "Don't be alarmed."

The Scientist wasn't much of anything. "Wanderers in the Fourth Dimension, isn't it marvellous? All those Red Alerts, all that dancing!"

"Everything sounds good. Especially your voice." The Woodsman gets up again. "Now I'm just going… you're still not listening."

"Count the shadows aim for the eyestalk run! run! run! Gold star for mathematical excellence don't let me abandon you I thought I told you to go to sleep the daisiest daisy I am blessed with both did I mention it travels in there will be no war that's how it all started just a twinge of cosmic angst I've certainly got a gob."

The Woodsman prods the back of the Scientist's head. "Yeah, you certainly do."

"What?" The Scientist looks up properly now, focuses on the Woodsman _now_, looks, well… rather annoyed.

"What?"

"I don't have a concussion. Stop… poking. Sit on the table."

"Are you feeling… okay?"

The Scientist wipes his mouth with one hand and fixes his hair with the other. "It's not like I want to be here, you know. This place has a few good people and a few dumb rules and I have to adhere and I'm quite sure I know who I'll run into eventually, and you are beautiful and ridiculous and I really am going to get out of here, but I need you to be there. All of you. Now, listen."

Later, the Woodsman places the mug of tea that was meant for him in the Scientist's hands.

* * *

Every time she blinks there's something new in the shadows –

faceless beings beckoning –

a golden woman, arms outstretched, great unseeing eyes –

a sphere floating in midair –

then in someone's hand, and above it a pair of red eyes –

a man in white –

a man in black –

The Woodsman, clutching his own hand, grimacing.

Behind him, another Vampire: teeth bared and rapier raised, he was getting ready to leap –

The Girl throws herself to her knees, grabs the closest thing she can find – a piece of half-rotten tree stump – and throws it, just as the Woodsman spins -

The piece of stump hits some part of the Vampire and with a wordless cry he melts into the shadows.

She scrambles to her feet and takes a fistful of the Woodsman's tunic; uses her momentum to drag him with her, shouts – thinks she shouts –, "Run!"

* * *

The Girl is in the Cottage, arms wrapped around her knees, feet pulled up onto her seat. Her coat in a heap on the floor. (The Woodsman had brought her; had insisted on staying outside; had put his hands on his hips.) "So, worse and worse," she finishes.

The Woman scribbles something in her blue book; finishes with some flourish.

"What's that? The book?"

"Ah, this is a journal of impossible things."

The Girl settles more comfortably, wipes the last bits of decaying wood from her palms. "What does it do?"

The Woman puts her quill down, and leans closer to a candle. (Her candles flicker, pulse, are so bright; but they never shrink.) "It tells me things."

"Tells you things?"

"Things. Like…" She turns a page and reads: "'The Girl will sleep for 1894 years'."

The Girl doesn't shiver, even though she'd quite like to. "What does that mean?"

"It means you're a little bit tired." The Woman smiles. "You should tell him."

The Girl knows she doesn't mean the Woodsman. "That I'm tired?"

"About the things you see."

"What can he do?"

"He won't do anything, most likely. He'll say it's nothing to worry about."

The Girl puts her chin on a knee. "Does your book say that?"

"_I_ say that."

"You should come to the Shed. You know, _properly_ inside."

The Woman closes her book. "Thank you. Perhaps I will."

* * *

The Woodsman and the Girl leave together. He keeps his ears strained (perhaps fruitlessly, it was true, but they _could_ hear each other again), and she clutches the heaviest stick either of them could find. "So," he says, "I met the Scientist."

"Ah, my Raggedy Man!" Her voice is unusually high. "How did you get into the Shed?"

"He opened the door."

"About time." She stops, shifts her grip on the stick; clears her throat. "Did you help him?"

"Does he need help?"

"Yes. Did you?"

"I… tried."

She frowns, nods in the direction of his satchel. "Cos _this_ is not what you're supposed to do."


	5. Chapter 5 of 10

The Girl slaps the Woodsman's shoulder, leaves him by the fence. She can feel his gaze on her back as she makes her way through the garden.

* * *

The first thing she sees after clawing open the door to the Shed is the empty chair; the second is the mug sitting next to it. Other senses take over, and she notices _it_ – the scratching, the smell of wood. And she turns her head slightly and brushes a curtain of hair aside and there he is, kneeling next to the table. He's carving something into the top with the penknife they use to get through the shells of those sky-coloured fruits, and she thinks she should probably be angry.

He's working on a pair of symbols, moves the blade between them.

"What are those?" she asks. Her knees feel funny.

He doesn't look up, but he grins. "Theta Sigma."

She moves closer. All over the tabletop and the cupboard doors; symbols; so, so many, and the only one she recognises is the omega. There are letters that she's seen somewhere before (no longer toppling gods), and the number 76, and a truly staggering amount of question marks, and many, many circles; big ones and little ones, intersecting and overflowing, but never breaking.

"If you're wondering what I'm doing," he says, "I'm gathering my thoughts. Has to be done. I can't keep track of them sitting still. I'll be finished soon. Then we can cook! I feel like an omelette."

"Yeah. Yeah, that would be great."

"What's the matter?" he asks, and his eyes are so bright. "I thought you wanted me to get about?"

She wets her lips. "I do. I was just… surprised, that's all. And don't disappear completely, you hear?"

"Oh, never. Never completely." He blows some woodshavings onto the floor.

"You can have the bed tonight," she says, and then she smiles until the muscles in her cheeks ache.

* * *

Later, when he's lying in the bed and she's laid herself down next to him and grasped his hand very tightly, he realises, with as much gravitas as he has strength for: he was not made for this sort of thing. He slips out of her grip and then, without hesitation, out the door.

The air is cold and clear and smells like dust after rain.

The garden is relatively normal, tonight. (Not that he would know.) And it is absolutely, completely, utterly quiet. He leans against a familiar tree trunk, strokes the surface of a silver leaf, wishes it were day so he could see it shining. _Idiots, putting him in (t)here. Idiots who didn't listen._

* * *

The Woman gets ready. She removes the darkness below her eyes and wipes off her lipstick and loosens her tongue.

Her windchimes are unusually agitated. She's barely registered the change in their song when there's the shadow of a hand and a thump on the floor and a tug on her hair, and the first part could have been a trick of the light, but not the second; and definitely not the third.

She turns the corners of her mouth upwards; there's a presence behind her (a breath in her ear). But for a minuscule nod, she remains completely still.

The Raggedy Man has a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other.

While she waits for the water to boil, the Girl tears some dried petals; stuffs them into three mugs.

"Why would I mind?" he asks, stirring the contents of the bowl enthusiastically. "You met the Wicked Woman and invited her for tea? Seems entirely logical to me."

"Thought you'd like it." She'd told him, just like the Woman had said. (About her walks, about her workdays.) What he'd replied? _"Nothing to worry about."_

"We should have company more often," he says, the skin around his eyes crinkling. "We could all live together!"

"Who?"

"All of us, here. You, me, she and him."

"Don't get carried away." She laughs. "Are you done yet?"

* * *

The scent of tea fills the room; light and heady, fruity and flowery. The Woman raises her mug, nods to her hosts.

The Scientist, next to her on the bed (well, if one defined 'next to' loosely), scratches his cheek.

The Girl, sitting on the floor, raises the plate of biscuits. "Have a biscuit. They're a bit small because _someone_ refused to make them bigger."

"Excuse me!" exclaims the Scientist. "They are of a perfectly adequate…" He squints at the plate, then shakes his head. "They're good, mind, very sugary… also biscuit-y."

The Woman shakes her head. "Thank you, but I'll pass." She pins the Girl with a look. "What do you know of the world outside this Shed?"

"So much for light conversation," mutters the Scientist.

The Girl straightens, closes her fist around her half-eaten biscuit. "What do _you_ know?"

"I'll tell you." The Woman cradles her mug, glances at the rocking chair. "As much as I can."

* * *

The Woman has stepped outside, has left the other two to clean up the crumbs and do the washing-up.

She looks over the garden; toes the place where the grass becomes moss; helps herself to a couple of berries.

Eventually, the Scientist emerges, wiping soap from his forehead and letting light spill everywhere. "Good, you're still here!"

"I am."

A muscle in his right cheek twitches; once. He holds up a finger. "Those biscuits…"

"Yes?"

"There was a while – well, more like a moment – when I thought they weren't there."

She smiles. "That's because there weren't any."

He laughs, curtly. "I made them myself, from… The things I always make them from."

"I'm sure you did."

He lowers the finger. "There were none?"

"None."

"But I made them."

"Yes."

"They're her favourite."

"I know."

"None?"

"Not to me."

"Okay," he says. "Thank you. Have you seen the back? It has a bird."

* * *

The Scientist looks through the cupboards; shelf upon shelf of empty space look back. He straightens his tie in lieu of better, runs a hand through his hair.

"The biscuits are gone," says the Girl, grinning like she ate them all.

"Yes," he says, "I know. What did I make them from?"

She points. "Flour. Sugar. Custard. The usual. Why? You're making me hungry."

He turns, again and again, caught between her finger and the empty shelves. Finally, he puts on a smile. "Thought it might be time to nip by the shop for some more fish fingers, that's all."

She pokes him in the ribs, laughs. "The shop!"

He laughs too, rubs at the spot.

Later, when their excitement has faded and he's sat down, he rubs his temples and thinks about his box. Listens, tastes, looks, strains against the isolation… falls back against the rigid back of the chair.

The worst dreams of all are those that at the same time are so very wonderful and so very terrible: like those when he relives, with a disproportionately acute muscle memory, the steps he took on that long-gone planet, the quirks of that first body; reaching out and touching the console for the very first time…

It's there, somewhere; above and beyond and ahead and behind… everything that ever was and all that ever would be.

* * *

The Girl leans against the Raggedy Man's legs, rests her head on his knee and her elbow on his trainer, pokes at a table leg with a toe. He's still and quiet and his eyes were restless beneath the lids, and she hopes he dreams of something nice.

She's taken the telescope, has tuned it to her needs. She spends a while (long enough) looking at the contents of the Shed through varying degrees of blurriness, until everything is a green and blue and brown unity. When that happens, she makes her careful way onto her feet, and she slips outside, and she puts the device to its intended use. _It's not done yet_, he's said, and that was true; she's turned the little knob as far as it will go, and on the other side of the brass tube the stars are still fuzzy, unattainable.

She's left the door wide open, and she never strays from the bright rectangle and the carpet of grass, but she spends the night alone.

The next not-evening, after work, the Girl kneels next to a pond. She's late, and around her the trees grow wings and the bushes teeth and the wind whispers about escapees, but in the water –

There's the reflection of a child; a red-headed child with red wellies and a red coat.

The Girl waves –

and the child fogs the water (on her side) with a breath. She raises a finger and draws a pointy star, a box, a bowtie, a sword. And she laughs.

The Girl's heading home, slipping between gossamer mist and rippling shadows.

Stone wings disentangle from the darkness; stone hands slip from stone faces; there's the horrible grating… The Girl runs as fast as she can, straight ahead, focusing her gaze on the furthest point, and she stumbles and swears and she's getting sososo _sick_ of this.

The Path seems to go on forever, tonight.

Dull steel glides along the edge of her vision, an eyestalk following her every move… she looks down at her feet, pulls the coat tight.

Sounds: shooting, roaring, laughing –

"Exterminate!" An echo of an echo of an echo, redistributed tens of thousands of times, and she presses her hands to her ears and it helps not at all.

The glare of distant fire, the acrid smell of smoke, the screams of thousands millions billions in her ears and in her head and in her soul; the sound, the feel, the _emotion_ ripping out every heartstring she has and she has them double and… She's a very small being in a vast bright pain and the scent of despair grows and – silence. Something cold at her knees flips the world back and deposits her on all fours on the Path. She staggers to her feet, peels sodden leaves from her palms, brushes wet-tipped hair from her face. The damp has soaked through her tights.

She struggles with her breaths and wipes her nose.

Something in the shadows makes a compassionate noise.

The Girl straightens, squints. "If that's you, Woodsman, I'm going to come in there and… Is that you?"

There's no reply. (Of course there's no reply.)

She's had enough of things hiding in shadows, no matter if they were scared or concerned or… And she steps off the Path and reaches into the darkness, and she grips something soft and rough, something almost-familiar and almost-comfortable; clothing. Something she still can't see.

Someone's fingers on her fingers, and the warmth of a voice: "Guess who I am."


	6. Chapter 6 of 10

It starts to rain. (Of course of course of course it starts to rain.)

The voice and the familiarity had been torn away, and she's left with aches in places she can't even name.

And it rains.

* * *

She moves by guessing, orientates herself when she can; actually grateful for the flashes of lightning accompanying the more and more insistent thunderclaps.

She drags her sopping coat through the garden; the fabric has gone dark, dark red and it tears at the flowers.

The Man stands in the doorway – as in, he's opened the door and stands in the light (it almost seems welcoming, this time). His hug is an almost-touch, but she presses her cheek against his raggedy shoulder and the numb tip of her nose to his neck, and he strokes her slippery-soaked hair. (This time, it does help.)

The rain makes things grow; soggy moss; snaking vines; waxy thorns as thick as her arms and thrice her height.

The thunder and lightning do nothing except shake the world and make everything smell like ozone.

* * *

The Woman brushes a curl out of an eye, peers between newly-grown vines. The little fence had been mangled; the gate was hanging onto a particularly sharp thorn, a good bit above her head. The door to the Shed was ajar.

She moves. Places a palm on the meaty sleekness of a wide, thick thorn, traces its loops and grooves.

She finds a large enough opening and looks into the backyard. It's a mess of plants and putrefaction, now, a cage of vines and more thorns, lit by brilliant green; a garden in name only. She'd been only a few days ago, and it hadn't been anything like _this_ then. Not that the state of it mattered.

The Scientist is there; contained, on display. He's on his knees, tending one of the dead things, talking to it or himself or both.

She ignores the odour of the vines and her itching palms.

Later, when he stands up, the entire garden seems to move with him; grow to accommodate him, to bar him. She thinks it must be a trick of that corrupt green light.

He raises a dirty hand, and she rolls her eyes.

He approaches, and the opening she's found suddenly seems smaller.

His breath is a white cloud rising towards the sky, but so is hers; and she blinks first; with one eye.

He leans forward and she leans forward. They share a breath and he frowns and she does the same without thinking about it. She says what she needs to say; "I'm sorry."

* * *

Later, when the Woman has left and the Scientist has gone inside to wash, there's a knock on the door. He opens it, hopeful, and there's a hand on his shoulder and an instruction in his ear.

He wanders out into the garden. The sky has been ripped apart by yet another jagged bolt of lightning, one he felt rather than saw, and otherwise there is a general darkness and that one persistent bird. He looks around, and (maybe it's the darkness but) the thorns don't seem so sharp anymore, the vines no longer so plentiful and impenetrable. They're the only things between him and (freedom) the forest.

The Scientist rolls up what's left of his sleeves, pushes back his hair, makes sure his laces are tied, and then he starts to climb.

He's standing on the Path. Looks left and right. Left again. He walks straight ahead, lets the forest swallow him up.

Someone's leading him by the hands and the nose and the hearts, like she had so very many years ago. The gateway to far-flung hopes and impossible dreams.

He closes a fist around a (not-quite-there) cane and might he still be sleeping, digging his nails into that chair? But he stumbles on fern and mushrooms and slippery leaves, and if he were sleeping, shouldn't he have stumbled on carefully arrayed chunks of coral, stacks of brittle glass, remnants of star charts?

(all of time and space)

– and he walks and gets further and the forest is very forest-y –

(people made of smoke and cities made of song)

– and he is just as fascinated and just as desperate –

(and he deserves this)

– and he's been choking on stale boredom for so long and if this is madness then he is mad –

(he'd done his part; honoured his House, reared his progeny, turned away from the stars)

– only this time he is quite alone. He doesn't want to remember if he actually said 'come along, child' or if that part came later.

Thorn-cut and wide-eyed and damp-footed, he steps onto blackened grass and sees her; the bluest blue ever. He lets out a breath; it becomes a smile.

He skips between piles of dirt and incisions and depressions and finally – finally – he can stroke the paint and press his face against it and –

"Why are you embracing my Cottage?"

"Oh," he says, his mouth so dry, and he turns, unwillingly; keeps both hands on the blue, presses his back against it. "It's a very nice Cottage. Very… nice."

The Woman nods. "How about you move away from the door and come inside?"

He moves away, unwillingly, and she opens the door and extends a hand.

He brushes past her, and, once _inside_, says the first thing that comes to mind: "Oh, sexy!"

The Woman appears at his shoulder. "Isn't she?"

He stares at the ceiling, openmouthed; spins around. Stumbles into the table, apologises. Pets a cream jug and an old nail and a shimmering ball of yarn. Slides into the seat opposite the door – such a comfortable seat – and stretches his legs out and draws deep breaths.

The Woman says something, but he files it away, to listen to later, and he closes his eyes and enjoys the glowing light, the permeating calm, the tannins in the air.

The Woman snaps her fingers in front of his face, and he drags his eyelids open. "Do you want to see?" she asks – no, repeats – and she holds a book the colour of the Cottage approximately fourteen point seven centimetres from his face, and she presses on it hard because the skin under her nails has changed colour and… "Yes," he says. He never gets to see. "I want to see."

She relaxes her grip and opens the book – almost in the middle – and he straightens even though he hadn't planned to, and she leans so close she's pressing a shoulder against one of his, and her hair brushes several parts of his face at once, and she holds the book so that they both can see the two pages, and he says, "They're blank."

And she says, "Not for long". (He knew she was going to say that.)

She's barely bit off the last syllable before the page to the left obliges. The very top of it says, in ink and a decent enough handwriting (at the same time familiar and entirely foreign): _Such empty children, left in the forest, all alone in the dark. Searching the stars_

He knows she's holding her breath, so he draws a very deliberate one. Just below the first sentence, there's another, suddenly: _everything that's ever hated you_

And on the right page there's a list, longer and longer every time he blinks: _Daleks, Cybermen, Zygons, Weevils, Silurians, Judoon_

He says, "Turn the page."

She does; she crinkles it.

Two more blank pages. Seconds pass, and nothing happens. And then, all over both pages, names: _Jamie, Zoe, Donna… Jo, Martha… Turlough, Mel, Nyssa… Barbara, Ian, Liz, Sarah, K-9, Leela… Tegan, Peri, Charley, Benny… Ace, Fitz… Sara, Adric, Rory… Kamelion… Lynda, Joan, Reinette, Sally…_

He can't bring himself to ask her to turn it, but she does anyway.

Two more pages, and, immediately:

_Such a temper! burning cold_ on the left page, and on the right: _Gallifrey Gallifrey Gallifrey Skaro Titan Mondas Mars only you know the rules the threefold man a nameless terrible thing lonely then and lonelier now_

He snatches the book from her hands and slams it shut. While she wrenches it from him, while he detachedly lets go of it, he closes his eyes, breathes through the ache, focuses on feeling all the lovely golden light and smelling all the lovely little sounds.

The book is nowhere to be seen when he looks up again. The Woman sits across from him, utterly calm, looking at a spot between his eyes.

He swallows. "I take them by the hand and I lead them to their deaths."

"Oh," she says, "you do?"


	7. Chapter 7 of 10

The next day, the Girl gets ready, and she tells him, like she almost always does, "Go."

He kisses her on the forehead, sees her off, and then he slips his almost-finished-really-well-probably telescope into a trouser pocket, opens the door, and strides out into the garden.

First, he's going to see where the Path ends; why it's so important, why the forest won't leave the Girl alone.

And then, he'll go to the Cottage – he'll bring the Girl, once he's found her, and they'll go together. He'll bring the Woodsman, too, once he's found him. They'll all go together.

He climbs and only gets stuck twice and on particularly not very nice thorns and he lands perfectly and he looks up the Path and down the Path and –

He's distracted by a depression in a bit of mud. Someone had stepped there, quite hard, and then, judging by the angle, walked straight into the forest. The Scientist smiles and places his feet accordingly, steps into the shadows.

The darkness is compact before his eyes and in his lungs; he can see, but little, and breathe, but with difficulty. Other than that there's a vague noise and an insistent pressure on his mind, and, certainly, it is annoying, but he keeps going. He takes a step and another and gets further and further away from the Path; more and more shadows settle on his shoulders, and just (the very moment) when he contemplates thinking about returning –

A tiny too-neat scratch at the bark of moderately gnarly tree, and, _yes_, he thinks, that's not supposed to be there.

He smiles (wider than before) and keeps going.

Next (and a long, long way from the Path) is a thread of black fabric on the very tip of an obscured branch in a bush so deep into the shadows they drip from the back leaves.

He smiles (wider than before) and keeps going.

An artfully broken twig, a bit of growling, and rather a lot of running later, the Scientist finally stumbles into a glade. The forest is otherwise plentiful and dark, and the bit of sky visible is very bright and speckled with stars. He tears his gaze from the heavens; they'll have to wait.

The Woman crouches in a pool of cloak next to a faceless statue next to an expanse of thistles. "Oh, hello."

"Ah," he says, winks until half his face is involved, "what a coincidence."

She rises. "You did take an enormous amount of time. I was starting to think the panthers had got you."

"Yes, well, there were a lot of them." He tries to brush the various bits of forest on his person away, but most of them don't seem to want to let go. "It's a very nice place, this, I have to say. I'm not entirely convinced the pointy flowers won't prove a bit of a bother one way or another, but the rest is… very nice."

She offers him a smile.

* * *

The Woodsman presses his face into his hands. His head hurts, and he's tried blinking it away. _'This,'_ she'd said, _'is not what you're supposed to do."_ He tends the forest, yes, and he doesn't mind doing it. He protects the Shed, yes, and he does it because there's no one else, because he's the one who…, because _she_… And he mends sprained bird wings and rescues bumblebees out of puddles of dew. He battles the roots that seem to be draining the rest of the plants of their life force. The helping is the part he really likes. Was that what she meant?

He moves one hand to his breastbone. He'd remembered that they were… and she'd remembered too, he'd seen it.

And the Scientist shouldn't be in the Shed anymore.

The statue is cold against his back and the metal eyepiece is cold against his skin, but the sky is perfect above and the Woman's arm is pressed against his. "Aren't you lonely here?" he asks, adjusting the knob until the star he's aiming for is perfectly sharp. There's something not quite right about these stars, but he can't put his finger on what it is.

"I keep myself occupied." She shifts against the rigid stone toga, tries to find a more comfortable crease. Maybe she manages. "What about you?"

"Oh," he says. "Me too. Waiting."

"For?"

"Oh, something terribly dull." He sniffs. "Are you… waiting?"

She reaches up, brushes a dry leaf out of his hair. "Oh, don't worry about me. I'm used to it. I'll just listen to the rain."

"Well, to each their own."

"So, you're running away."

"No, not presently."

"She told you about the forest."

He knows she means the Girl. "Yes."

"Do you know why –"

"It happens? Yes."

* * *

The Girl finds the Woodsman (she's getting better and better at it), and she puts her arms around his neck, and touches the tip of her nose to his, and she feels like crying – he does.

He tilts his head and she does the same.

"Go on," she says, "ask me something. I might lie, might not." She hesitates, then touches her nose.

The Scientist creases his brow. "Doesn't your hair get stuck when you move through the forest?"

"You can do better than that."

So he does (asks), and she whispers the answer in his ear, just the thing he knows she will say, and he goes still all over.

His first instinct is to apologise, but he's suddenly certain his cheek will hurt if he does, so the words fall apart on his tongue.

Her hand is clammy and she fills her lungs with just a little more air than she ought to need. The Scientist tucks these pieces of information away.

She says, "I've heard there's a something that's impossible to catch not far from here."

And he says, "How impossible?"

He returns to the Shed with scratches down one cheek and feeling almost content.

The Girl sits in the rocking chair, her elbows on her thighs and her chin in her hands. There's something terribly relieved in her expression. "You came back."

"Of course I came back. I always come back."

"The one time you leave and you find something to maul you."

He touches his temple, winces. "I did, yes. Actually, it was a lot more fun that it appears."

They sit with their backs against the door, staring at the chair. It retaliates by casting a long shadow over them, but the Scientist ignores it.

She nudges his trainer with a boot.

"It's all right," he says.

"I'm _engaged_ to the Woodsman." She bites her lip, implores him with a look that makes his gut twist. "How could I not remember that?"

"I'm not sure."

"Yet," she says, with conviction.

"Yet," he says.

"I'm getting married in the morning."

"Mmm."

She leans her head on his shoulder. "So, today. You left. Besides the mauling, what did you do?"

"Well… at one point I thought about dancing with the Wicked Woman."

"Why didn't you?"

"Thistles," he says.

And she laughs until they both shake.


	8. Chapter 8 of 10

She can't remember leaving the Shed, or walking down the Path, or coming out of the shadows — not this time — but she's walking up the Path now, heading home. The air smells different; like overripe berries and rotten moss.

She's had the very forest reaching for her.

She's seen Cybermen (whole ones) and rhino-beings and hot Romans and the great eyes and slimy orange things, and they'd all just… stared.

She's passed things she thinks must mean _something_; a feather, a stone, a scuffed deodorant can.

She's almost stumbled on a pair of wires, almost banged her knee into a box carrying a language that's ancient and forever and unreadable.

She's heard the sound of fire and the screams of billions.

The lump in her throat grows, hurts more.

There's a rumble, and yet another bout of lightning, and the sky is burnt orange.

She breathes through her mouth, wipes her nose with the back of a hand.

The Man comes down the Path, reaches out to her. She passes him, makes him follow her; starts to run.

She waits until they're both in the Shed, until the door is closed and there are only them and the chair and the orrery and the tiara on the floor, and the she presses the heel of a hand against his shoulder. Tells him: "You have to fix this!"

He says: "I will," and then he still has to ask, apparently: "Why?"

"Because I can't take it anymore!" She wraps the other hand around his tie and tugs. "I won't!"

"I know."

"Tell me why this is happening."

"I'm sorry. It's all about you and I'm sorry."

"Then tell me what's going to happen to me."

And he loosens her fingers and kisses all ten of them, and he strokes her hair. "I don't know."

The sky is hanging broken, all drooping clouds and bleeding colours, and the stars are smudged and running.

~

* * *

The world is shrinking. The Woodsman's walks get shorter and shorter.

The place gets smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter and weirder and weirder. (He'd moved a twig and seen a nebula.)

There's a great maw in the sky. Roots shrivel, curl in on themselves, and disappear. Trees grow backwards; become saplings become seeds can't be seen.

The thorns around the Shed wither and shatter and disappear, leaving a noxious dust and the remains of the fence behind.

Only the Path is the same as ever.

~

* * *

The Girl and the Woodsman find one another, hand in hand and mouth to mouth.

The Scientist gets up from the chair and out of the Shed, and he closes the door behind him; only looks back once. He tells them to breathe and when they don't he inserts himself between them, and takes their hands — one each — in his, and he says, "We have to leave."

The Woodsman wipes his mouth. "Why?"

"Because… this place is breaking up."

"Um, that means?"

The Girl frowns. "What do you mean 'this place'?"

The Man nods —

and there's a terrible noise and a terrible shudder and the Path heaves, and the ground opens up and swallows the Shed whole.

~

* * *

The Woman wraps her blue book in its layers of fabric; slips it into an inner pocket where it can shield her heart.

Time to leave.

~

* * *

It happens inside the Cottage, and this is how:

All the candles go out and the box bursts, flinging blue splinters in every direction. These splinters undulate on their own axes; burning separately, tearing separately.

~

* * *

"Oh," says the Woodsman, gesturing vaguely to the place where the Shed used to be. "That's what you meant."

"That'll do it," says the Scientist. He's feeling rather pleased with the disappearance. The Girl digs her nails into his hand, and he decides it must be shock; she won't miss the place. He tells her: "It'll be fine." She grimaces in response.

He'll find a way, of course; he always does. Will fix this. The daft old man could be pretty clever.

~

* * *

"That's the Cottage," says the Scientist, clutching his stomach. "Burning up." _In pain._

The sky is full of orange and more orange and deep blue and lighter blue; the Path turns more and more yellow.

They've got quite far; he's not sure where they're heading, but they're getting there. The Path is very long, it turns out.

~

* * *

The Woodsman leads the way, and the Girl keeps the Man from stopping and staring at the fire. Seems no matter where they are, they can see the Cottage burn.

They reach the point where the shadows usually swallow her up; but there aren't any shadows anymore. There aren't any trees, either. Just the Path, and the darkness on both sides of it.

And, after a bend the Girl has never seen before, there's the Woman, in a mantle and a corset and trousers.

"Do you know what's happening?" the Woodsman cries.

The Woman waits for them to come closer before she replies. "Things have changed."

"We've sort of noticed. Any idea why?"

The Woman actually smiles. "Night will fall and drown the sun."

The Girl rolls her eyes. "Why can't you speak like a… like a normal person."

"Someday."

"Promise?" The Girl tugs at the Man's tattered cuff, makes sure he's there.

~

* * *

The Woman looks at the others — the Girl, scowling; the Woodsman; his hand on his hip, the Scientist; staring over his shoulder. They have no idea.

She knows what has to happen, what _had_ happened. She knows the prophecy, and every variation thereof, by heart.

They fear silence; she's relearnt it.

~

* * *

The Girl closes her coat. "Where do we go now?"

The Man makes a face, and she realises he doesn't know. "Well-"

"Cos the Shed's gone and the Cottage's gone, and the forest is disappearing. Where do we go now?"

"There's always the Goblin", says the Woman.

The Scientist spreads his arms; half a gesture, half a twitch. "What Goblin?"

"There isn't more than one here."

"Is the Goblin useful?"

The Woman pushes back her hair. "I dare say he's very familiar with this place."

"Why didn't I know this? Why didn't any of you tell me this!"

"I could have sworn you knew." She raises a brow. "If you lot can't make up your minds, I'll go alone."

The Girl takes a step closer to the Woman. "Do you know where to go?"

"Of course."

"How do you know?"

The Woodsman clears his throat. "The Goblin lives in the castle. I… thought everyone knew." He avoids the Man's eyes.

The Girl considers her options, and in the end, it is knowledge she needs. She nods. "Yeah. Let's go there."

She's not sure how long they've been walking when they see the bird. It sits on the only branch of a scorched tree, and it's tiny and blue and it shines. "The Goblin," it chirps, "has a forked tongue and a split lip."


	9. Chapter 9 of 10

They're on a hill and she can see the Goblin's castle. It's at the very end of the Path; many-turreted and grey-dull. Her feet hurt (damp, flat boots) and her fingers are numb (wrapped into the Raggedy Man's cuff) and her head aches (the bright yellow Path, the burnt orange sky, the bulging darkness everywhere else). There's a breeze, but it barely pushes the hair out of her eyes.

The hill slopes, and the Path is a winding, thinning ribbon leading to the castle's door. She doesn't feel anything special, being here. Did she walk to this place every morning, from it every afternoon? This distance? No, not possible.

"And, surprise," says the Woodsman, "it's a huge distance away."

The Man, whose discomfort had turned into a depression between the eyebrows and a staunch refusal to look neither back nor up, grins. "At least we know where we're going. Let's get cracking!"

"I think maybe I can get us there. Without the walking, I mean."

The Man turns his head toward the Woodsman, eases his cuff loose; pats the Girl's fingers. "How could you _possibly_ do that?"

"I just…." The Woodsman closes his eyes and wrinkles his nose and opens the eyes again. "Do something like that."

"Whatever you did, it certainly worked," says the Woman.

The Girl blinks — and the castle is a mere stone's throw away. "That's happened before, right?"

"Has it?" The Man's frown turns into a grimace, makes him tense, takes the grin away. "How did you do that!"

"I don't know, I just did."

"All right. Fine. Okay. Brilliant, but disconcerting." He kicks the Path; nearly slips. "I don't like this!"

"Meanwhile, the autumn spring lawn and the talking bird didn't bother you in the slightest!"

The Woman puts a hand on the Girl's shoulder, nudges. "They might be a while. Shall we?"

"Of course. Watch out, Goblin." The Path has grown sleeker and sleeker, and the Girl has to be careful where she places her feet. "Does your book know anything about this? You know, 'this' in general?"

"Oh, it does. I do."

"What is it, then?"

"Oh, old stuff. Not yours to relive."

"Like?"

"The fall of Troy, Demon's Run, the threefold man. You'll understand."

"And what about me?"

"You should remember."

"No… I think I should guess."

The Woman squeezes her shoulder.

~

* * *

The entrance to the castle is a plain wooden door.

The Girl and the Woman wait for the others, because it would be rude not to.

The Woodsman glares at the Woman until she strides over to bother the Man, who's running his hands over the door, apparently amazed by its wooden-ness.

The Girl rolls her eyes. "What do you want?"

The Woodsman scratches his head. "So, this castle…"

"Yeah?"

"What's wrong with it?

"Does something have to be wrong with it?" She asks, despite feeling that something most definitely was Wrong With It.

He gives her an odd look, but it's also a curiously obliging one. "If this is the end of the Path… you didn't like coming here."

~

* * *

The door is heavy, but the Man and the Woman manage to push it open — it moves inward, slowly, noisily. They're in the way, but the Girl can see the flicker of candles.

The Man says nothing and the Woman says nothing, so the Girl takes the Woodsman's hand and strides through the door. And then she stops.

And then the Woodsman treads on her heel. Stops, puts his chin on her shoulder. "Is that…"

"The Goblin. Must be." She swallows.

The door has let them directly into a chamber; not into an anteroom or a hallway or up a flight of stairs, but into a great chamber. There are candles in lopsided chandeliers, and the burnt orange bursts in through tall windows, but otherwise, the castle is this room, and the room is dull, grey stone; cracked stone.

And then there is the Goblin.

Must be the Goblin.

The thing is —

he was also her Raggedy Man. His hair is neater and he's dressed in a jacket and a bowtie, but it's definitely _him_. He sits on a stone throne behind a stone table with a chess set on it, and he waves.

"Explain." She glances at her Raggedy Man, the proper one; he's straightening his tie.

He opens his mouth —

And the Goblin says, "This is the man all tattered and torn… who stole a magic box and ran away." It's the same voice, too. He grips the armrests and leans forward, leers; the cuts on his lips stretch. "Oh, yes. Great big paradox, that's me."

The Man sniffs. "You're not looking your best either, I'd say."

_Well_, the Girl thinks, _that's true_. The tweed jacket was ripped, the bowtie frayed, and his features were enhanced by soot.

The Goblin reaches out, flips one of the chess pieces over; it's a pawn, and it rolls off the table and down onto the floor; it splits.

The door slams shut behind them, disturbing some of the candles; the shadows reel.

The Woodsman clears his throat; it echoes. "Why… are there two of you?"

The Goblin taps an armrest with the tip of a finger. "Ah, the Woodsman, who's not a woodsman, but who had to be because it was the only title left."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't look at me like that; this is your world. This is all _your_ world. I'm just a filter. Oh, I know so much about all of you. I listen to you. Then I make things out of what I've heard. I make trees, and I make flowers, and little birds and bottomless pits and decrepit gardens full of dead things and ever-squeaking swings. I make lots of things that need to be _saved_."

The Woodsman shakes his head. "I don't understand."

"No! But then you never do. Shot any more girlfriends?" The Goblin leans back again, crosses his legs. "Go on, any of you, have a guess. This place. What is it?"

"It's our dreams, if you could call them that," says the Man.

"You're boring. It's not good sport to get it on the first try." He brightens, nevertheless. "Shall I tell you who contributed what?" He pins the Girl with a look. "It'll be ever so much fun. This _is_ your dream, Amy, isn't it? Yes, it is. Some of it; the broad strokes. You once had an imaginary friend…"

The Man turns to her, holds up a hand. "Don't listen to him."

The Girl swallows, because somehow, the name fits. It's hers. It has almost always been hers. Her head spins. "Amy Pond," she mumbles, barely loud enough for herself to hear.

"Oh, Doctor," continues the Goblin. "Don't listen, don't listen. Look at me, your ultimate foe. I have adapted to the situation. Bad, bad subconscious."

The Man lets the hand fall. "Why are you doing this?"

"You said it, stupid! Like a name in a fairytale… A girl with the entire universe running through her head. How could I resist?"

"No, that's not it."

"Time to wake up, eh? Feel better? Refreshed? Ready to take on the Silence with your tweed and your hair and your… quirks?"

The Girl looks between the raggedy men — both seem primarily stubborn — and the Woodsman — who's clenching and unclenching his right hand and staring at it — and the Woman — she seems primarily fascinated. The Girl has to ask, so she catches the Goblin's eye; "Who are you?"

The Goblin regards her with pity; it's an expression her Raggedy Man has never ever worn. "Call me the Lord of Dreams… I'm quite partial to that one, as far as monikers go."

The Man spreads his arms. "Are we just going to stand here and talk?"

The Goblin shrugs. "Should we resort to blows instead? I admit I'd rather not; I could never look Freud in the eye again."

"I assume you can stop this? The fire?"

"One of us can, I'm sure." (The Girl shakes her head, because he glances in her direction.) "Like the tale says… 'hope', right?"

"Since you're relatively non-annoying, I'm going to assume the matter isn't pressing, so far?"

"We have time, a bit. No need to stop chatting already." He looks down at himself, tugs at the bowtie. "How about this cabaret act? You didn't like it when I mentioned that, did you?"

"Yes, I wasn't keen on the limerick, either, if you recall."

"You know I'm right, of course. You can walk without tripping over your own feet, and you are perfectly capable of understanding most, if not all, of their simple ways, and you know more about them than they ever will themselves… and you don't say it, because why would you? The fun Doctor, that's the one they'll like." The Goblin draws breath, eyes glittering.

"Is this monologue going anywhere? Talk about earache."

"The goblin and the trickster and the warrior… which one, pray tell, do you think you are?"

"Well, it's obvious which one you are."

"Is it?"

"Ha! Of course you'd say that. I'm almost impressed."

"Realise this: we're in a world built on your lies." The Goblin pushes himself to his feet; rises languidly; comes toward their group. "Amy… Rory… Come, now, Rory, look at me!"

The Woodsman glances up from his hand; the Girl can see it takes effort.

The Goblin comes closer and closer still. "Rory, Rory, Rory. You… You lucid dreamer, you. Two thousand years? Remember? Those times when all we had was me giving you things to do and you… doing your best? Oh, I do hope that was your best."

The Woodsman clenches his hand again. His lips part, but he doesn't say anything. The Girl steps in front of him; opens her coat to make herself as big as possible.

The Goblin tuts. "You realise he hasn't disappeared, don't you?" He passes the Raggedy Man; theirs shoulders brush. "And Amy, our adventures. Don't you remember? I took you to see the stars. The whale? Vincent van Gogh? I even let you keep the tiara."

This was her chance, she should be asking all her questions; the ones about the Path, and the Shed, and her days; she should be… and now her mouth is dry and her head pounds and her name is Amy Pond.

Her Raggedy Man has turned around; intent on the Goblin's every move, but he doesn't stop him.

The Goblin is so close she could reach out and stroke his dirty cheek, or tug at his threadbare lapel, or kick his shin — and he steps neatly to the side and into the Woman's personal space.

"Hello," says the Woman.

He looks her over. "And you… Can't lie in your dreams, can you? Burdened incessantly, discredited and imprisoned and —" he threw a look over a shoulder, at the Man "— insulted. And for what? The luxury of getting some titbit that you might have to share with half the galaxy anyway? And you can never be sure if he's lying to _you_. Never be sure of exactly what he knows."

"I thought you'd give up. Same dream, again and again and again and —"

He waves a hand, makes a face. "You were surprisingly boring, at first, I'll give you that. Really, you couldn't have done better for the audience? Anyway, it picked up once you got out of the box. Oh, Doctor, if you knew what I've seen."

The Raggedy Man raises his chin.

The Woman reaches up, strokes the Goblin's bowtie, smiles; it's a rather sweet smile. "You know nothing about me."

The Goblin laughs. "Oh, but I will, or so you tell me — or him, same thing, isn't it? How long have you practised that smirk?"

She pulls back her hand and cocks her head. "I know all about you. Let's say half of it are lies… I still know a lot."

"Are you trying to fool me?"

"Oh," she says, and her voice is low, sultry. "No one ever implied that."

"You know," he says, spinning away from her, "I'll leave you be. I figure that's fair. I'll make it up to you later."

"Is that so?"

The Girl snorts.

The Goblin stops, glances over a shoulder. "Sorry?"

"Come on! You're afraid of her!"

"Oh, Amy. I think maybe you should be quiet now."

"You should be quiet!" It takes the Girl a moment to realise it's the Woodsman putting voice to her words.

"Oh, dear, the gooseberry's irate." The Goblin turns to him. "Jealous, much?"

The Woodsman sighs, holds up both hands. "Just… Which one of you is real? Cos there's one I don't like!"

"Are you going to run me through with your imaginary sword, is that it?"

"Dream Lord…" The Woman catches the Goblin's attention, makes a soothing motion. "How can we get out of here, say, soon-ish?"


	10. Chapter 10 of 10

**A/N**: The final part! I started this fic just after _The Big Bang_ aired, and the only part I didn't more or less write in July 2010 is this one. S6 provided me with a way to, hopefully, tie this together (in some manner).

I feel like I should explain this fic, but I don't know how, so I'm just going to put it here. When it comes down to it, these are some of my rather convoluted thoughts on _Who_ and its characters, so, um, thank you for reading.

* * *

The Goblin laughs (at least it sounds like a laugh), copies the face the Woman's making. "Don't ask me, I'm just the resident copy! Tell me, how's being suspended in time working for you?"

The Woman sniffs. "You must like the sound of your own voice."

"Oh, fine," says the Goblin, looks them over. "You may, collectively, ask me two questions if I can dare our Girl something."

The Man straightens. "What?"

"I'll answer one with a truth and the other with a lie. How about it?"

"Dare her to do what?"

"How about it?"

"Do what?"

"How about it?"

"Fine. I'll ask."

"Oh, of course you will. Dazzle me!"

"Are you and I the same?"

A sneer. "No. Thought that was obvious."

"Is that a lie?"

The Goblin rolls his eyes.

"Ha!" The Girl exclaims; can't help herself.

"Was that really the most pressing question?" mumbles the Woman.

The Man merely smiles.

"My turn, and the dare. Amy! One of these men – choose. One stays, the other… leaves. Either way I think I'll keep you, see. And you, too, Woman; guess I'll have to."

The Woman bends a knee. "Flattered, but no thanks."

"I won't." The Girl clutches the Woodsman's hand with one of hers and reaches for the Raggedy Man with the other; paws at his torn shirt. "I won't choose."

The Raggedy Man squeezes her fingers but refuses their grip; flicks a strand of her hair and smiles. And he walks backwards, smiling still, across the thousands of hairlines fracturing the floor.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

He winks, and opens the door; lets the full glare and the cold heat in for a moment –

and the door shuts with a click (a tiny sound for what was, considering, a heavy door) and he's no longer inside the castle.

The Goblin mock-gasps. "Oh, no! Did you see that coming? I certainly didn't."

The Girl makes for the door, pulls the Woodsman with her; but the Woman blocks her path.

"So he left on his own," continues the Goblin. "What are you going to do about it, hm? Cry?"

"Why her?" asks the Woodsman, and the Girl tries not to notice that he looks relieved. (Really, really relieved.)

The Girl scowls. "You can just shut up. All of you."

"Oh, shush," says the Goblin, "You'll forget him soon."

* * *

The Girl's eyes have glazed over, and she's cross-legged on the floor, sitting on her red coat. She's in the Goblin's castle with the Woodsman and the Woman, and she's not feeling very well.

"Okay!" The Woodsman shouts, stomps his foot. "What is it you want us to do?"

The Goblin slouches on his throne. "I don't want you to do anything, stupid. You'll wake up soon, we'll all be rid of one another." He raises a brow. "At least I hope you'll wake up soon. Tranquillisers were never my forte."

"Are you that desperate for praise?" The Woman raises her book; licks the tip of a finger; flips another page. "What about me?"

"There's always a way out, apparently."

The Girl bites her lip; something's a bit wrong, isn't it? She looks at the Woodsman, but he's distracted by his hand (again); stares at it; shakes his head.

* * *

Something brushes her shoulder; the Woman's fingers. The Girl looks up, because why not?

The Woman seems, of all things, calm. "Didn't you say something about guessing?"

The Girl blinks, and she thinks about the way there and back again – remembers the feeling of fabric in her hand and the warmth of a voice in her ear. She thinks about the pain in her throat and in her chest and in her head, about her half-finished painting, swallowed up by the Shed swallowed up by the ground. She can't remember the adventures the Goblin talks about, but she remembers returning, every night, returning – "Someone's missing," she says.

"Who could possibly be missing?" The Woodsman presses his hands to his head. "If he'd just tell us what's happening, but no, he's just going to sit there and make that face…"

"Shh!" The Girl makes fists and raises her voice (because she was asked to guess); cries to the room in general. "Good Wizard!"

There's a sourceless wind and the orange light dims, and he's a familiar profile stumbling into existence, with a perfectly horizontal bowtie and an enormous smile and a few accessories.

The Goblin straightens, brushes his trousers off.

Once the Wizard's there, the thunder starts up again; the orange light blazes and throws shadows all across the broken floor. "Hello! I'm the Man with the Mop. And the Fez. Can't forget the fez. And the Bowtie! Don't forget that! And the Madman Without A Box. And the Good Wizard. And, oh, dear, someone shut me up!" He looks at the Girl, and his eyes shine. "Good Wizard is nice, though, as far as monikers go."

The Goblin hisses. "That's my word!"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" says the Woodsman.

The Wizard hands the Girl the mop. "Sorry I'm a bit late. Had to tell a girl a story, and the ducks kept interrupting. Hold this."

"Great!" says the Girl. "Let's whack him in the face!"

"Yes, maybe later."

The Goblin doesn't look worried; if anything, he looks even smugger. "Saving the day in the nick of time. Right? The Woodsman agrees with me."

"Leave him alone."

"I'm curious, though… Why would you relive this? Seriously?"

The Good Wizard shrugs. "I didn't have much to play with, did I?"

"And you're sure this… impromptu hivemind was the way to go?"

"We're helping each other."

"Ah, yes, the silence! Worked it through? Figured it out yet?"

"Have you?"

"I'm impressed by the perfect prisons, though. Lemons, lemonade."

The Girl hefts the mop; the worn wood bites her hands. "What are you on about now?"

"Dreaming." The Goblin leers. "Or… falling through time, or being tranquilised, or shutting yourself away in a box – again, I might add." He fixes the Good Wizard with a stare. "Cut off from the rest of the universe, and you still haven't worked it out?"

"Speaking of…" The Good Wizard rubs his hands together, smiles. "Let's not drag this out anymore, shall we?"

"That's it? You're just going to do it like _that_?"

"Amelia Pond," says the Good Wizard. He turns away from the Goblin and walks up to her; tangles his fingers in the ends of her hair, and when he pulls them back he's holding a speck of dust. "See, the thing about fairytales…" He blows the dust away, and –

The Goblin spreads his hands and disappears.

The orange outside bursts through the windows, bursts _properly_; great beams of light; cracks – it becomes brighter and hotter; falls on the throne and the table and the chess pieces and make them bleed away; erases the castle from the inside.

The Good Wizard raises a hand to the Woodman, pokes the air in the Woman's direction; then he grins, and adjusts his fez, and challenges the light with open arms.

The Girl backs closer to the Woodsman, to the Woman.

The Wizard disappears, fades away, and the light is searing, blinding –

Her stomach flips, and the hair on her arms stands up; her knees give way and she thinks that the floor will be hard and –

ever after ever after.

The Girl twitches. The Woodsman's fingers aren't entwined with hers anymore, and the Woman's hand is no longer on her shoulder.

_"Can you even remember? The warehouse?"_

_"I see you."_

_"What are you waiting for?"_

_"Do not approach the prisoner."_

The smell of plastic and sweat, the sandpaper-y dryness in her mouth; her hair in her eye.

Here's the box in the box, hidden in plain sight, and here's the man in the box and here's the girl who remembered and the boy who forgot.

Here's Canton Everett Delaware III, helping her to her feet.

_"So I guess they can't hear us, right?"_


End file.
